Jikji: Metal Movable-Type Printing

Timeline

1. c. 1371–1376Goryeo temples and official workshops · Korean PeninsulaBefore the 1370s, Goryeo had accumulated experience in casting, repairing, and typesetting bronze movable type; temples and central institutions printed Buddhist and Confucian texts. Around 1371, wooden and metal movable types were still being tested in parallel across various regions, laying the technical foundation for printing Jikji.
2. 1377Heundeoksa · North Chungcheong ProvinceIn July 1377, the two-volume Jikji (Baekunhwasang chorok bulyo jipyo), compiled by the monk Baegun Gyeongam, was printed with metal movable type at Heundeoksa; the colophon reads 'Printed and distributed with cast type at Heundeoksa in the seventh month of the jiayin year.' This is the earliest surviving metal movable-type printed artifact, inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2001.
3. 1378–1380Goryeo–Ming exchange sphere · Korean PeninsulaThe lower volume of Jikji may still have circulated within Goryeo in the late 1370s, later lost through exchanges of Buddhist texts. The lower volume is now held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris; in the 20th century, textual and typographic analysis confirmed it as a metal movable-type printing, becoming key physical evidence for the study of East Asian printing history.